10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Asian markets were higher in overnight trading, with the
Nikkei up a slight 0.04 percent and the Shanghai Composite rising
0.4 percent. European markets are down across the board, with
Italy and France down 0.7 percent. In the United States, Dow
futures are up 21 points and S&P 500 futures are up 3 points.

In its quarterly report today, the Bank of England
downgraded its growth forecast for 2013 to around 1
percent. Furthermore, it said it expects inflation will not
come back down to the 2 percent target rate until the sce ond
half of 2013.

The Federal Reserve will release the minutes of its October
FOMC meeting at 2:00 PM ET. Several Fed governors, perhaps
most notably Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen, have advocated
in recent weeks tying the size and duration of monetary policy
programs explicitly to quantitative targets. Market
participants will be looking for hints that this idea may be
entering the discussion.